


Here is Gone

by Anonymous



Category: Dragonlance - Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, kind Old West, trapped in cyclical loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 06:19:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12163224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/





	Here is Gone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tonepoem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tonepoem/gifts).



Disclaimer: Dragonlance belongs to TSR and Ballatine books and Magaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, it is not mine.  
Notes Kinda Old West AU in the sense that the twins stumble upon a town that should not exist but it does and the  
inhabitants straddle a careful line between their own reality and what they know should be 'real.

 

"Here is Gone" 

 

When he came to there is a acrid taste in his mouth and a hollow in his gut. He retches but nothing comes up. He glanced around at his immediate surroundings and realized that he is lying on a cot in a bare rom empty of everything save a tiny sink, a high narrow window that lets in a trickle of gray daylight and a chamber pot.

He got up and walked to the entrance to this narrow chamber and realized that it barred and his hands are tied behind his back. 

Securely, very securely. His robes are still intact, and he glances down to the spot on his belt where he would normally store his pouches of herbs and spell-casting parphernalia. They are empty.

He took a look through the bars and saw a man slouching a in a chair behind a wooden desk.

The man slouches in loose-limbed and causal in a battered chair on the other side of the cell is several weeks unshaven and the hollows of his eyes are sunken in shadow. For a man who has spent many years straddling the borderlands between light and darkness, and no stranger to either, Raistlin Majere does not find this disconcerting; only aggravating. 

The man smokes a pipe that has a bitter scent it, one that other can smell even at a distance, it has nearly gone out but enough remains that embers fall to the floor and the man in the chair stomps them out one by one with the heel of his black boots. 

"You're awake," the man drawled.

"No thanks to you, I presume?"

"Can't take any chances. Not with the likes of you. I nearly lost a hand to the last fellow who thought himself mighty fine with those red robes that passed through these here parts."

"Red robes?" 

"Yeah, he did.

"What happened to him?" 

"Can't rightly say, Claims he was just passing through. What he's to you?" Fellow guild-member, friend? Rival. Inquiring minds, and all that?"

"You might say we're in the same guild," the other allowed.

"Why am I here?"

"Welcome to La Lapida, and allow me to introduce myself, I have the honor of being the major of this here town." He got up out of his chair and went to stand on the other side of the bars. "The name is Wilhelm Alaric. What's yours?

"Raistlin Majere."

"Well, Majere, No reason, not to tell you. In fact, when you find out what you're in for," Alaric chcuckeled and shrugged his broad well-muscled shoulders. "You might just find our company a bit more pleasant than what you'll find when you get to Deadwood."

"I demand!"

"Demand, what?" 

"Answers."

"Okay, I guess, You see in these here parts, it ain't legal to practice necromancy, alchemy, sleight of hand, and the like. I don't really ken the difference between real and what's trickery.

"Real magic?" Raistlin sneered. "Untie my hands and I'll show you real magic."

"Take it easy, pal. Take it easy. I ain't the one who trussed you up. That's on the boys who bring'em in. Knowing what 'real magic' is above my pay grade."

The bosses seem to have taken a dim view of those select view whose powers are, uncanny, and well, it ain't my ken. So they have taken it upon themselves to do something about it." 

"I get the idea," said Raistlin dryly.

"Between you and me, buddy,' personally, it aint' magic that's the problem."

"Then what is the problem?"

"It's how they use the magic. And if anyone had asked me at the time this whole mess began' we wouldn't be in the current mess that we are." Alaric sighed and ran his hands through his dark hair. "I've said too much."

 

Just then there is a rustle and banging on the door on the far side of the office and a dusty and disheveled man came in, his clothes were dun-colored and black and were of good cloth. He had saddle-bags drape around his waist. "Alaric, are you there? Oh, good. You'd best come quick, there's a big problem out to the edge of town.

"What kind of problem?" Alaric asked.

"Well, it's only one warriror and he being troublesome, asking questions, wondering if we'd seen any red-robed mages passing through. Cutting up pretty rough."

"Only one? Alaric scoffed.

"Yeah, but he's big and determined. The strange thing is that he found the cache where store that magical junk we take off the damn spell-casters.

"Let me through, " suggested Raistlin mildly with knowing that with that uncanny link that had also seemed to exist between himself and his twin brother, that if one or another were in trouble, that like a magnet finding true north, they would be inextricably linked to one other. 

Off and on he has always wondered if there would ever come a time when that would not be the case; but not today. In the back of his mind, he sighed, 'Caramon,, my brother, come quickly, and try not do anything stupidly reckless or accidentally kill anyone along the way or we both share this cell.'

"You know this warrior?" Alaric asked, and the manner in which he does so makes it sound less like a question and more like a statement.

Raistlin nodded. "I do."

"How?"

"You will find out."

"Stoic bastard. No, nothing else?" Alaric turned to his deputy and nods. "Let him through. I want to see how this plays out."

"Yes, Sir," the deputy saluted.

***  
Caramon did not want to admit that he'd lost the trail. By his reckoning as near as can tell it has only been two days and one night that he and brother had been parted.

When he'd come back from gathering firewood for the fire he'd found the campsite scattered and destroyed but with boot-prints, bits and pieces of still smoldering wooden wagon wheels and a thrown horse-shoe along with the scattered leaves of part of his brother's herbal leaves. 

He had learned to hunt and fish and track from first the half-elf Tanis and then the gruff hill-dwarf Flint Fireforge back in Solace; and right now he hoped that that training had not deserted him completely. Obviously something had happened here, and his brother was gone. 

The only path open to him now was to find out who, why and where they had taken Rasitlin.

With the ground-hugging stride of both a warrior and a veteran traveler Caramon took to the trail.

The landscape in which he found hismelf varied from rolling grass-lands which they had passed through only a fortnight ago to rough brown terrain with only scatterd settlements here and there. 

The trail ended at a small town; but it struck him as odd that there were hardly any people about, even for late afternoon. The sun at his left shoulder had just barely begun to reach the tree-line when he walked into the town.

The houses were constructed of wood and stone instead and were about one or two stories except for what looked to be some kind of manor house with another smaller building constructed along to its side. He did see horses, and even one or two donkeys, a few teams hitched to wagon covered with tarps. 

Caramon shifted his weight from one foot to the other, rolled his shoulders to loosen up the kinks in his muscles and strode forward. 

There had to be someone about that he begin to make inquiries; there simply had to be. 

The closer he got to the center of the small town he began to heard the hubub of voices raised in song, laughter, argument coming from what he taken for a manor hall. There were many horses tied up in front of ramshackle building.

Caramon noted these as he would have noted his surroundings as a trained warrior would have taken note of things and then promptly filed them away. He pushed aside the swinging doors and went inside.

The interior of the building smelled close, but not unpleasantly so. He'd been in taverns and rooming houses that were far worse than this. The large room consisted of tables, chairs, a long bar against the back wall and large cleared area where men and women were engaged in what Caramon at first took for some kind of battle sparring.

A short barrel-chested man came forward wearing rumpled clothing, a white and red chequered shirt, brown slacks with brown leather straps covering all of it, and soft lumpy cap on his still full but turning gray at the edges. He was joined a moment later by a much taller and leaner man wearing matte black clothes, his shirt, jacket, slacks, wide-brimmed hat all the same lusterless shade. 

"Evening, Stranger, Welcome, to Sammie's Saloon, and Rooming Establishment. You're welcome to stay here, for a drink, or will ye be wanting something to eat first?"

Carmon's stomach rumbled at the mention of food, and his throat was dry, but his mission to find his brother took priority even over the clamors of his hunger.

"No, No, I was, ah, hoping you'd good help me out. I've been looking all over for someone."

"Aint't we all," the short man, presumably Sammie replied with a muffled guffaw. "I'm spoken for, 

"That's not what I meant," Caramon replied. "You see, It's ah personal, a family matter."

"Who are you looking for," the man in black interposed himself, muttering out of the side of his mouth and giving Sammie a nudge to return to his post behind the bar counter, whispering. "I'll take over from here."

"Alaric, I'll get our new friend a drink on the house. Whatever will he think of our hospitality?

"I don't care. We're running out of time," stated the man addressed as Alaric.

"A man, my age, tall but carries a staff and was wearing red robes," Caramon replied.

Sammie who had paused halfway of the distance to the bar, gulped and started to open his mouth was caught in the act by the man in black's silent slashing gesture, signaling him to keep his mouth throat. Sammie did not like Alaric, but the man was both feared and respected for a reason. "But what about? She'll have to be told. And what about the ixnay about nay 'curse",

"Sammie!"

"Fine! Fine, have it your way, Alaric. You always do," Sammie muttered under his breath.

"Red robes, you say?"

"Yeah," Caramon, "Have you? Can you take me to him. I've been worried ever since he disappeared...and.." he heaved a deep sigh and tightened his grip around the hilt of his sword. 'He's my twin...:"

"Twins?"

"I'm Wilhem Alaric, and I'll take you to your brother."

 

***

"Raist!" Caramon exclaimed, are you all right?" "

"I am fine," Raistlin replied.

"What happened? Where have you been? I was so worried!"

"I am fine, my brother," Raistlin replied.

Alaric eyed the two of them. "You said you were twins?"

"Yeah, is that gonna be a problem?" Caramon demanded. 

"No, no, "Alaric replied. "But, as much as I hate to interrupt this tender family reunion, I have to ask, why'd you bring a sword to a gun fight?" Alaric asked with some wonder and not a little aprehension. 

The mage's brother was tall, big and brawny, and looked he could break someone's head if it suited him.

"What's a gun? Caramon asked, slightly confused by the unfamiliar word.

"Do not trouble your never reliable wits, my brother. But look to the small dark metal cylinders in the holsters they all wear at their waists."

"What are they?" Caramon whispered.

"Some kind of weapon. They don't look all that dangerous."

"Do not trouble your never reliable wits, my brother. But look to the small dark metal cylinders in the holsters they all wear at their waists."

"What are they?" Caramon whispered.

"Some kind of weapon. They don't look all that dangerous."

"I would not too be certain of that, Caramon," said Raistlin. "They have managed to enchant.."

A loud thrumming sound accompanied seconds later by the acrid odor of ozone right before heat lightning struck cut Raistlin off in mid sentence. 

When he could see and focus once more he realized it was not lightning at all, but the after effects of what appeared to be a shot from a long cylinder whose aperture was still smoldering from some form of arcane energy.

Rasitlin had always prided himself on his intellect, his power to control himself and everything around him, including his magic, but having been divested of some but not all of his magical parpehnelia, having been held captive by these strange outlanders; a smoldering anger had begun to boil up inside.

Caramon for his part got up from the ground and stared at the trail of red blood that trickled down his left arm where the 'enchanted' bullet had grazed him; caromed off his arm braced and from there ended its trajectory into a horse trough filled with water. The water still steamed.

"By the Abyss!" Caramon swore.

"As I was trying to tell you, Caramon. They have 'enchanted' weapons."

"I dunno, Raist. You're the expert in magic. Is that even possible?"

"It would appear that is. I for one, find not only personally offensive, but as a member of the Mage Guild, it is doubly so."

Alaric reached out and placed a hand on one red-robed sleeve, wondering if the material was as soft as it looked. "When we first met, I told you that we occupied in rounding up magic-users, and for the most part that's true. As far as it went."

"What do you mean?" Raistlin demanded.

"I mean, it's not magic users that are the..." Alaric trailed off.

The sound of someone moving toward them out of the manor house on the far side of the main road through town. 

Every person in the immediate area turned to watch this new person's arrival, from dun-clothed deputies, to the people standing on their porches of their homes or residences; and even those on horse-back, and those standing around the local tavern.

It was a black-haired woman wearing loose flowing trousers of same twany colors as the others in town but over the short-sleeved shirt she sported a lilac and red and green vest. Her black hair was caught up in a silver netting and she wore knee-high boots. 

The man coming up behind her was carrying the strange projectile cylinder.

Raistlin was drawn to her not because she was beautiful but because of the aura of power and command that she drew about her like a cloak.

"Who's that!" Caramon asked in a carrying whisper.

"Who is she?" Raistlin asked Wilhem Alaric.

"Majere, ever since the beginning you've been demanding answers; Well you're about to get them," Alaric stated. "She's my sister."

 

"Gentlemen," the woman said as came up to them. "Allow me to introduce myself, I am Billie Alaric," the Major of Two Pines." I am so, so very glad to have finally met you."

"Madame, I fear, I cannot say the same," Raistlin said not without some asperity. 

"Now, now, let's not the unpleastantness of luring you both here, get in the way with what needs to be done," Billie said.

"So you admit that you 'lured' us here.

"Of course. If we had gone outright and asked for your help, would you have agreed?"

"Yeah!" Caramon replied.

"It's more complicated than that, my friend." Billie sighed. "Allow me to tell you a little of the history of our town. "We are out of step, out of time, trapped in between what is, and what could be."

"I don't understand," Caramon said.

"Two Pines and the border installation we maintain for our deputies has to straddle a careful line," Wilhem explained. 

"You see, you live in the world you know, we need your help to get out of this, this, town is our whole world and we would all dearly love a chance to experience life outside of this 'limbo' existence," Billie explained.

"That's where you two come in," Wilhem stated.

'What do you need us for?" Caramon asked.

"You will return my property," Raistlin ordered.

Wilhem gestured to one of the men who stood on the edge of the semi-circle and one of them carried over a saddle bag from which he took out Rasitlin's pouches and other things.

"Twins, one with powerful magic, the other a strong fighter, tested by the only magical weapons that we could create," Wilhem said.

"You weren't injured, well, not seriously by the magic bullet from the esoteric rifle. Magic bullet Swallow your pride. Just follow me. Tied down inside where the nightmare's hide. " Billie intoned. "All the while that winning smile pale and strill draining, snow white's black out fire.

 

"I, don't Can you?" Caramon muttered.

'It's better to just show you," Billie replied.

"Come with me to the town's outskirts this is were you must cast your spell and once he does, the other must cut into the invsible barrier and we will be set free."

 

Caramon and Rasitlin followed Billie and Wilhem Alaric to the outskirts of town. It might have just been his imagination but through the heat haze the town, such as it was, came to an abrupt end.

"This is the spot," Wilhem said. "Our magic is inherent to the town, but yours is not bound by those laws, so it can pierce the barrier that keeps us all trapped here."

Raistlin studied the haze, with his eyes, his hands, and with the more subtle senses provided by his magic. He traced delicate patterns of pale white and red runes on the air and paced forward and backward in order to determine if this was indeed 'the spot.'

The closer he came to it the more it felt as an invisible yet powerful force was exerted to push him away; so he pushed back, casting the magical cantrip that would activate the runes he had already traced on the air and counteract the barrier. 

A hole in the fabric of reality opened up and Rasitlin exchanged a significant glance with his brother, who drew his sword and thrust into the 'doorway.' Energy surged in and around this doorway and arced down the blade of Caramon's sword, almost making him lose his grip on the hilt; almost. 

"Thanks," Billie said. "More than you'll ever know."

It was a matter of heartbeats, and the town, it's buildings: its inhabitants, all of it, When the lighting stopped and the residual light show had passed, and the brothers could see once more. Deadwood had vanished. As they looked around a hot wind blew a piece of wood with the words 'Welcome to Two Pines: pop. 250-,and the voice of hot and dusty wind seemed to carry an echo, "More than you'll ever know.'

"Raist, I don't like it here."

"Agreed." Let us leave immediately."

 

****  
Conclusion

The following day as they had left Deadwood and its inhabitants far behind him Rasitlin stated something he'd been mulling over.

"I believe that the entire town and its residents were trapped in a kind of cyclical loop.

"Huh?"

"It means, Caramon, that the events kept repeating over and over again."

"Was the town even real? I mean, they felt real, they looked real, the place certainly smelled real..."

"It was real to them," Raistlin replied.

"Like they were under a curse," Caramon concluded.

"Exactly.

"There's one thing I don't understand about all of this."

"What would that be?

"What did they need us for?"

"I should think that would be obvious. To break the curse?"

"Okay, okay, I guess that makes sense," Caramon replied. "But what's with the magic weapons."

"It was an oddly specific curse. I plan to report the provenance of 'enchanted weapons to Par-Salian and the Council of Mages as soon as possible."


End file.
